Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (55 page)

2 Ibid., p. 126.

3 Ibid., p. 125.

1. Ebrahim Moosa,
   Ghazali & the Poetics of Imagination
   (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), Acknowledgements, p. xi.
   

2. Carol Tarvis,
   The Mismeasure of Women
   (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 17.
   

3. Especially useful in my research in this are two works, that of Khaled Abou El Fadl,
   Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
   (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001) and Alison Jaggar,
   Feminist Politics and Human Nature
   (Totowa, NJ:
   Rowman & Littlefield, 1988).
   

4. Fatnah Sabbah,
   Women in the Muslim Unconscious
   , trans. from the French,
   La
   

   femme dans l’inconscient musulman
   (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984).
   

5. As explained in details about linguistic construction in Chapter 1, “What’s in a Name?”
   

6. See chapter 4, “A New Hajar Paradigm: Motherhood and Family.”
   

10

276

Amina Wadud,
Qur
’
an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman
’
s Per-

inside the gender jihad

spective
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 15
–
16; inclusive of Kenneth Burke,
The Rhetoric of Religion
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), footnote, p. 14.

1. As cited by Abou El Fadl,
   Speaking in God’s Name
   , p. 24.
   

2. Jaggar,
   Feminist Politics
   , p. 125.
   

3. Wadud,
   Qur’an and Woman
   , pp. 94–95. 14 Ibid., p. 70.
   

1. Abou El Fadl,
   Speaking in God’s Name
   , p. 33.
   

2. Wadud,
   Qur
   ’
   an and Woman
   , p. 70.
   

3. Abou El Fadl,
   Speaking in God’s Name
   , p. 213.
   

4. Ibid., pp. 93
   –
   94. See also Mary Daly and conceptions of God and patriarchy;
   Beyond God the Father: Towards a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation
   (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985).
   

5. Abou El Fadl,
   Speaking in God's Name,
   p. 213.
   

6. In
   Qur’an and Woman
   , I have already argued that the Qur’an proposes three recommenda- tions in response to marital disruption, which should be applied in the order in which they were articulated. Unless each method has been fully exhausted, the next cannot be applied. The first recommendation in verse 4:34 is mutual consultation between husband and wife. Another verse suggests more extensive consultation with others (members of the extended family, or professional counselors as arbitrators). The second suggestion is a separation between the marital partners. I assert that the fullest application of such a separation could suggest the permanent separation of divorce. These two would prevent any access to the third,
   daraba
   . The Qur’an gives evidence of the extended separation through a prophetic example. In reality, men and women who respond violently to a disruption with their spouse, or any other member of the family, do so as their primary response. This abuse is not a reflection of the Qur’an, no matter how many post-event justifications abusers try to associate with the text.
   

7. Abou El Fadl,
   Speaking in God’s Name
   , p. 93.
   

8. Furthermore the Qur’an exhorts,
   “
   fa hal ‘ala al-rasul ila balaghan mubin
   ”
   (So is it [the respon- sibility, capacity] on the Prophet [to report anything] except rhetorical clarity?) (16:35).
   

9. Wadud,
   Qur’an and Woman
   , pp. xii–xv, 3–9. 24 Ibid., pp. 81–91, 100–104.
   

   Notes to Chapter 7
   

   1. Amina Wadud, “Preface,” in
      Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective
      (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. xviii–ix.
      

   2. In 1992, Merryl Wyn Davies, an intellectual Muslim commentator, and I coined this sixth pillar designation of
      hijab
      , as it is constantly discussed, despite its relative unimportance compared to the principles of Islam.
      

   3. In addressing the issue of sexuality and Islamic history and practice later in this chapter, I will provide further elaboration not appropriate at this point in the discussion. In addition, the reduction of women to their sexuality will be addressed further vis-à-vis the issue of women as
      imam
      s.
      

   4. See chapter 5, “Public Ritual Leadership and Gender Inclusiveness,” for details particular to that event.
      

   5. I have already provided the details of my authentic surrender to the call of Islam in the Introduction. The most significant impetus for my surrender was reading the Qur’an, which the brothers who gave me the
      shahadah
      never even mentioned.
      

   6. See Mohja Kahf,
      Western Representations of the Muslim Women: From Termagant to
      

      Notes
      277
      

      Odalisque
      (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999) for other false images and representa- tions. Also see “Harem Literature, 1763–1914: Tradition and Innovation,” in Billie Melman,
      Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918
      ,
      Sexuality, Religion and Work
      (London: Macmillan, 1982 ), pp. 59–76.
      

   7. See
      “
      Erasure
      ”
      below in this same chapter.
      

   8. Discussed in more detail in this chapter.
      

   9. Discussed below in this chapter in more detail.
      

   10. See www.womensenews.org.
       

   11. Noor al-Deen Atabek, “The Modernist Approach to Hadith Studies,” at Islam-on-Line, www.islamonline.net/english/Contemporary/2004/09/
       Article03.shtml, September 19, 2004.
       

   12. Sandra Lee Bartky, “Feminine Masochism and the Politics of Personal Transformation,” in
       Living With Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics
       , ed. Alison M. Jaggar (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p. 519.
       

   13. Scott Kugle (Siraj al-Haqq),“Sexuality, Diversity, and Ethics in the Agenda of Progressive Muslims,
       ”
       in
       Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism
       , ed. Omid Safi (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003).
       

14 Ibid., p. 191.

1. A more detailed consideration of these three verses and their interpretations, especially on the verse about post-menopausal women, is included in chapter 6, “Qur’an, Gender, and Interpretive Possibilities.”
   

2. Fact sheet no. 242, Women and H.I.V./A.I.D.S., June 2000,
   www.who.int/inf-fs/en/ fact242.html.
   

3. Fact sheet, Gender and H.I.V./A.I.D.S., December 2001, http://www.hivnet.ch:8000/ topics/gender-aids/views.
   

4. Or shouted in her face. Indeed, this statement anticipated the response that disrupted the
   

   I.M.L.C. proceedings. My status as a Muslim woman was attacked, because I expressly challenged the inadequacy of the normative neo-conservative discourse and strategies vis- à-vis the spread of H.I.V./A.I.D.S. and its consequence as a result of women and children’s vulnerability. In all the comments that occurred throughout the consultation and those that followed for several months thereafter, the major aim was to discredit my
   “
   Islam.
   ”
   Consequently, little or nothing was offered to address the insufficiency of the dominant theological paradigm,
   “
   la taqrabuna al-zina
   ,
   ”
   and the total failure of that agenda regarding protection for those most vulnerable to H.I.V./A.I.D.S.
   

5. Feisal Abdul Rauf,
   Islam: A Sacred Law: What Every Muslim Should Know about Shari‘ah
   

   (Brattleboro, VT: Qiblah Books, 2000).
   

6. Muslim Wake Up
   is an Internet publication, with a large readership, that promotes consid- eration of progressive perspectives and their opposition. This particular article was published in its February 11, 2005 edition.
   

7. I will no longer self-identify as a progressive Muslim or as a participant in progressive Islam after my experiences this past year, and in light of the comments I have made in this book about the male elitism that still characterizes the movements and discourses under this name. However, I will undoubtedly still be labeled as such or as subscribing to these discourses. The same is true of Islamic or Muslim feminism. I have never self-identified as a Muslim feminist and wrote extensively about this in the new preface in the U.S. edition of
   Qur’ an and Woman
   (1999). I have also continued (and will probably still continue) to be identified as such. Because no one form, format, or formula will resolve the multi-leveled complexities of Islamic growth and development at this point in history, these
   

278 inside the gender jihad

overlaps and distinctions only reiterate the need I have stressed for multiple strategies for real reform.

1. Translation my own.
   

2. Translation taken from A. Nooruddeen Durkee, translator and transliterator,
   Tajwidi Qur’an
   , English ed. Hajjah Noura Durkee (Charlottesville, VA: un-Noor Foundation, publisher and distributor, and@noor
   .net, 2003), p. 887.
   

3. Shaykh Ahmed Abdur-Rashid, compilation of
   Hizb-ul-Bahr: The Orison of The Sea
   with the permission of Shaykh-ul-Tariqa Al Hajj Azad Rasool (Alexandria, VA: The Circle
   Group, 2000),
   pp. 4–5 (with the exception of my own translation of quoted portions).
   

4. Durkee,
   Tajwidi Qur’an
   , pp. 673–674.
   

5. All of them taken from translations in Abdur-Rashid,
   Hizb-ul-Bahr
   ; pp. 14, 20–21, 28, 30–32, 34–34; except for the prayer for forgiveness taken as
   du‘a
   from my own memory of various sources.
   

Notes to the Conclusion

1. Turner, Tina, “I Don’t Wanna Fight” (lyrics © S. Duberry, Lulu and B. Lawrie) from the album
   What’s Love Got To Do With It?
   (1993).
   

2. Alice Walker,
   In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
   (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), p. 36.
   

3. Audre Lorde,
   Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lord
   (Berkeley: The Crossing Press, 1984, 14th edn 2001), p. 111.
   

4. Especially Paul Tillich,
   The Shaking of the Foundations
   (New York: Charles Scribner, 1978).
   

5 Ibid., p. 11.

1. Fazlur Rahman,
   Islam,
   2nd edn. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 129.
   

2. This was the original intent in developing
   fiqh
   and
   shari‘ah.
   Both are still important positive mechanisms, as long as the will of the people in our current reality is integral to reforms in the traditional codes.
   

Notes
279

Index

Locators in brackets refer to notes

‘abd
(servant before Allah)
17
(
2
),
24
,
36
,
95
,

258
,
260

Abdul-Ghafur, Saleemah
253

Abdur-Rashid, Ahmad xvii,
258

Abdusubur, Latifah xvii,
105
–
8
,
109

Abou El Fadl, Khaled xvii,
18
,
118
,
190
,
200
–
1

Abraham
122
–
3
,
124
–
5
,
276
(
38
)

academy feminism
80

hijab
61
–
2
,
275
(
27
)

Islamic studies
57
–
8

personal narratives
61
–
5

see also
Islamic Studies in Western academia; Muslim Women’s Studies

activist networks
see
Muslim women’s collectives and organizations

adat perpatih
132
Afghanistan, women in
77
African-American Muslims

family
145
–
9
,
152

September
11
attacks
228

women’s networks
102
–
10

ahadith
(sg.
hadith
; oral reports) ethics and Islamic law
51

female-inclusive interpretations of
7

and intent
92

and justice and dignity
47
and just relations
94
–
5
and reciprocity
29

and resistance to reform
52
,
243

and
taqwa
48

transmission of
96

Ahmed, Leila
20
,
83

Ali ibn Abi Talib (fourth caliph)
29
–
30
,
197

Allah

and agency
53

engaged surrender to His will
17
,
21
,
23
–
4
,

29
,
158
–
62

eradication of gender oppression and
45

and family
135
,
140
,
142

and Hajar
143

illocutionary force
91

and intent
92

jalal
and
jamal
attributes of
29
,
195
–
6

just relations with
94